"La Boulange" Poached Egg Hash

With Joef working in San Francisco this summer, I've had a couple of opportunities to go visit him in North Beach. You heard it hear first, folks - I am in love with that city. Oh my God. The weather is balmy and cool, the streets look European, and you can walk a few blocks and see sea lions off the pier. I mean, come on.

And the food is great, too. For breakfast, we went to a place called "La Boulange". Yes, it's a chain, and they have a lovely menu, and this little condiment area with jars of jam, NUTELLA, olives, cornichons - all kinds of things that you can take bits of back to your table. Plus, they serve their cappuccino in deep, round bowls, which is just plain decadent.

I've now been there twice, and both times, we've both gotten their poached egg hash (with bacon, not sausage). It makes a great breakfast - it's just two eggs over zucchini, yellow squash, and cannellini beans, plus bacon and some herbs. And since it was easy, and easily replicated, I made it here at home. I decided to add some onion and tomato, and to replace the herbs with just a little salt and pepper. As I'm writing this, I realized I completely forgot the bacon part. It's good vegetarian - and if you wanted, a little chopped pancetta would do nicely.

I'm still not really sure how to poach an egg. The whole stirring the water while you drop the egg in thing is just not quite working out. But it worked on at least one of my two eggs.

2 eggs
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 onion, chopped
1/4 zucchini, chopped
1/4 yellow squash, chopped
1/2 tomato, chopped and lightly salted
1/3 a can or so cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
Salt and pepper to taste

In a small/medium saucepan over medium-high heat, drizzle olive oil. Add the onions and stir to coat with olive oil. When they start to turn translucent, turn the heat down to medium-low and simmer until they begin to soften and caramelize. Add the zucchini and squash, along with salt and pepper, and let that start to soften a bit, too (you can turn up the heat a little if you want).

Meanwhile, poach two eggs (that's right, I'm not going to tell you how, because I'm not so sure myself...fried eggs over easy would work fine, too). 

When you're close to being done, add the tomato and beans and cook them just enough to heat them up a bit.

Place the hash in a bowl and top with the two eggs, plus a pinch of ground black pepper.

Maple Candied Bacon and Sweet Potato Hash with Fried Eggs

(from Claire Robinson's 5 Ingredient Fix)

Confession: I made this a long time ago. For New Year's Eve breakfast, actually - so in fact, this was the first thing I cooked in 2011. Whaddya know! Joef got me this cookbook for Christmas, and it's got a lot of good stuff in it, including this. This is actually two recipes - the bacon and the hash. The bacon is fabulous. The hash - she recommended it "deconstructed" - but I thought it tasted better mixed together. Also, if anyone can help me figure out how to make the sweet potatoes crunchy on the outside instead of soft/mushy, please share!

DECONSTRUCTED SWEET POTATO HASH (with Fried Eggs)
1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
12 fresh sage leaves, divided
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup water, plus more as needed
2 sweet onions, chopped (Vidalia work)
(Fried eggs)

Melt 4 tbsp of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sage leaves and fry until crisp. Transfer to a paper-lined plate to drain.

Add the sweet potatoes to the skilled, toss to coat in the butter, then add the water and the rest of the sage (maybe this is the part where it gets mushy? I wonder if you could just boil the potatoes in water until they just slightly softened, then fry them up and skip this whole water part.) Bring the water to a simmer and cook the potatoes until the water evaporates and the potatoes are fork-tended. Remove any excess water and reserve. Keep cooking the potatoes until crusty brown (that's the part that never happened for me). Add more water or the reserved liquid if the potatoes stick.

Meanwhile, melt 2 tbsp of butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and cook, adding water if the pan gets dry, until deep golden brown and caramelized. This will take about 20 minutes. You can fry the eggs in this pan, too.

Put potatoes and onions next to each other on a plate and top with a fried egg. Or, mix the onions and potatoes together.

MAPLE CANDIED BACON
1 lb thick-sliced bacon
1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Line a rimmed baking sheet with heavy foil. Place a baking rack over the sheet and arrange the bacon slices across the rack next to each other.

In a small bowl, whisk the syrup and mustard. Spoon over the bacon and bake about 12-15 minutes. Turn the bacon over and repeat. Bake another 5-10 minutes or until crispy. (Alt: dip each slice of bacon in the mixture, let drip, then bake.)

Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle bacon with a little ground pepper, if you want. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, then serve with your hash and eggs.